IN CODE 23
especially of the word irinponoc, must have told any person in Alexan
dria what Philo meant. For enh-ponoc was in Philo's day one of the
official translations of the title of the Praefectus Aegypti. Flaccus is so
called by Philo,^10 and the title appears elsewhere.^11 To make his refer
ence clear Philo also brings out the Scriptural description of Joseph as
having honor in Egypt second only to that of the king or emperor.
Joseph, in short, typifies that enrrportoc; of all Egypt whose honor was
second only to the emperor's. Philo is using Joseph as a type to vent his
secret hatred of not just the politician, but specifically of that Roman
ruler who was immediately over Philo and his own circle. That Jew
would have been dull indeed who did not understand the reference.
So he treats other details in the same spirit. Joseph's badges of office,
the ring and the necklace, are vaguely but disparagingly explained to
make them marks of dishonor rather than honor.^12 Joseph climbs into
the second chariot, a symbol of how his mind is filled with "arrogance"
(TU4)OC) and empty snorting.^13 He devotes himself to laying up grain,
which represent one who cares for the body but not for the soul.
Indeed Joseph's very name means "addition," and this is elaborately
explained:
Empty opinion is always adding the spurious to the genuine, the alien to
the indigenous, truth to falsehood, the superfluous to what is sufficient in it
self, luxury to living, and arrogance (TU
Philo goes on to illustrate at length. Such a man is not satisfied with
plain and adequate fare, but must go to all lengths to secure delicacies.
Simple clothing is rejected for costly purple garments, or summer
clothes of exquisite fineness "like a spider's web," or costumes elabo
rately ornamented with embroidery and dyed designs.^15 "Empty opin
ion" also demands for its houses pillars, capitals, and archetraves im-
- Flac, 2.
- Dio, Epit. LXXVII, xxi, 3, 4; cf. Stein in Archiv jiir Papyr., IV, 151. The word appar-
endy has that meaning in a papyrus printed in Mitteis-Wilcken, Chrestomat., II, 372, V, 21,
from the Second Century, and certainly has it in the papyrus recounting an embassy to Augus
tus, published most recently in the Papiri della Societh haliana, X, 99 (no. n60, line 9). - The necklace is the xwdog xal XQO%BZ avayx,^ axzXzvxi\xov in contrast to the
dxokotriKa xal TO Egfjc; EV (3icp xal 6 EIQM-OC; xcbv xf)S (pvaecog JtoayM'Orcwv. This would ap
pear to be the Stoic cycle of necessity which the Jewish community seems to have rejected for
the Platonic-Pythagorean theistic order of nature. The ring is a sign of faithlessness, a gift from
a royal human being in contrast with the spiritual gifts of God. - Som., ii, 46: {WTOTV<povn.Evog wt' alcooac; cpQEvaW xal XEVOIJ q)VOy\iaTO<;.
- Ibid., 47. 15. Ibid., 52.